Determination of Mean Sea Level with GPS on Vessel

Reha Metin Alkan, H. Mustafa Palancioglu

Abstract:	The changes on the water level should be determined in order to reduce the depth measurements on to the reference surface. For this purpose, instruments called ‘Tide Gauges’ that have many types like staff gauges, float gauges or self-recording gauges are used. However, GPS improvements have shifted positioning surveying to satellite methods. Because of the advantages they provide these methods are being densely used for both terrestrial and hydrographic surveys. It is now possible to obtain the 3D coordinates of the dynamic objects with the use of kinematic tecniques of the GPS method. Especially, with the Kinematic On the Fly (KOF) method, the positions and the heights of the mobile objects can be determined by the carrier phase measurements with an accuracy below 1 dm and in most cases, just a few centimeters. Besides having such a high accuracy, the most important advantage that it provides is to define the initial integer ambiguity of the vehicle in motion. This method called as Precision Differential GPS (PDGPS) because of the accuracy it provides. In this study, a new ‘Mean Sea Level (MSL)’ determining model based on PDGPS method is introduced. The MSL is determined both by this new method and conventional staff tide gauge with two separate studies realised in Haliç (Golden Horn) Inlet and the results are compared. As a result of these studies, it is seen that the height of the mean sea level can be determined by the new method. This method is a powerful alternative to the conventional tide gauge methods.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 12th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1999) September 14 - 17, 1999 Nashville, TN
Pages:	1323 - 1330
Cite this article:	Alkan, Reha Metin, Palancioglu, H. Mustafa, "Determination of Mean Sea Level with GPS on Vessel," Proceedings of the 12th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1999), Nashville, TN, September 1999, pp. 1323-1330.
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